adventures in pharmaceuticals

[kaberett]

It only took me twenty-some minutes after I finally clawed my way to consciousness this morning to recall that, oh yeah, amitriptyline dose increases do that. (We're bumping me up another 10mg in the hope that this time it'll have any noticeable effect on the migraines.)

This afternoon, having woken up for the third time from the same very vivid nightmare about putting on a Biblical musical I'd written for which the first rehearsal was on opening night, I groggily shook the internet to reassure myself that Weird Dreams are also a well-known side effect of dose increases...

... and while scrolling down the page had my attention grabbed by an item on the list under a warning that Using amitriptyline with any of the following medicines is usually not recommended, but may be required in some cases. If both medicines are prescribed together, your doctor may change the dose or how often you use one or both of the medicines.

Specifically, I parsed "arsenic trioxide" and stopped scrolling, and scrolled back up, and reread it to confirm I hadn't just misparsed, and then internally went WAIT WHAT a bunch while doing some additional searches--

-- and it turns out that in addition to its usage as a wood preservative it's... also used in chemotherapy.

I do know that the aim of chemo is to poison the cancer faster than poisoning the rest of you, and that the drugs involved are never a fun time, but also good grief Today I Learned.

Comments

[redbird]

This reminded me of a blog post I saw a week or so back, by Derek Lowe, with the subject line

[Error: Irreparable invalid markup ('<a href-"https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2021/07/12/temozolimide-is-explosive">') in entry. Owner must fix manually. Raw contents below.]

This reminded me of a blog post I saw a week or so back, by Derek Lowe, with the subject line <a href-"https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2021/07/12/temozolimide-is-explosive">"Temozolide is explosive,"</a> and no, that's not a metaphor.

It's not the only explosive medicine--nitroglycerine is famous--but the disconcerting part is "The literature says that TMZ is stable up to its melting point (with decomposition) at 212C, but the authors note that no actual data could be found to back this up. So they gave the compound a full safety analysis."

This makes me wonder what other drugs are called "stable" even though nobody bothered to check.

[hilarita]

IIRC one of the major drugs used for breast cancer chemo is derived from the toxin in yew trees... (taxon-somthing?)

[tree_and_leaf]

Taxotere. And I believe there's also one derived from the Pacific Yew, which is similarly toxic.

[kaberett]

Yes, my mother had one round of Taxol (for not-breast-cancer) and then Stopped for reasons of intolerable side effects (the rest of the drug cocktail seems to have done the trick, though).

[tree_and_leaf]

I'm glad it did!

[lunabee34]

:(

I am so grateful my dad got a newer targeted chemo instead of the older blanket kill everything kind. It was much kinder to his system.

[kaberett]

Indeed. <3

[rmc28]

If I hadn't gone into remission with the chemo they gave me (idarubucin?), arsenic trioxide would have been involved in the next thing tried.

[kaberett]

Good grief. I am, obviously, glad (as ever) that you did go into remission as you did, and also I continue horrified that deliberately giving people arsenic poisoning is sometimes the least-bad option.

[silveradept]

I hope the meds changes are effective at getting rid of the migraines.

Also, wow, the amount of poisons we're willing to use to kill off the cancer is stunning.

[lokifan]

hoooooly...